PSYCHOLOGY AND INDUSTRY.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17452, 12 May 1922, Page 13

PSYCHOLOGY AND INDUSTRY.

AIDS TO EFFICIENCY.

A CUBE FOE UNEEST.

(from oub own correspondent.)

LONDON. March 31. A meeting of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology was held at the Mansion House to consider the importance, in the present industrial and commercial situation, of ing wasteful and misapplied effort by a more*systematic app.ication of human energy. The principal speakers were Lord Haldane, Mr W. L. Hichens (chairman of Cammell Laird and Company), and Dr. C. S. Myers. The institute was lormed rather more than a year ago. It was scientific (said Mr H. J. >*'eich, the chairman) first of all, in its • basis. Mope of its receipts or profits could be tributed amongst its members, but an money must be devoted to its object and to scientific research. They naa started out on a new line, which no hoped would justify itself* and th.;t was to undertake to do private pzycho.ogical work for individual firyis ana companies. In this way there uas no danger of getting their heads J P the clouds, because the practical business men for whom they were doing practical work would keep their feet upon the earth of hard facts. The objects of the institute were to assist employers in finding the way t do each piece of work, to find tn best worker for each class of J o ®!® . the best job for each worker, lnej brought to the aid of employers the latest scientific knowledge and au tn advantages of scientific training, an the application of this knowledge would reduce all unnecessary fatiguo, and would add directly and. indirectly to the happiness and well-being or tne workers of all classes.

Science an Aid to Output. i Dr. Myers, whom the chairman in troduced as the leading exponent ot applied psychology, and who, he Mid, was resigning from the Chair of Isj - chologv at Cambridge University in June in order to devote the whole of his time to the work of the institute, moved a resolution declaring that it was imperative that a national _ fund should he immediately established to enable the institute to extend is ephere of usefulness and continue the necessary researches. He claimed that the institute had already increased the output of various departments of certain factories by *0 to 40 per cent., 'and at the same time had decreased the amount of fatigue on the part or the workers. It had actually received the thanks, not onfy of the employers, but also of ttose emrloyed. Tre institute also aimed at guiding the young worker in the choice of occupation by applying to him a series of physical ana mental tests, and considering the re-sults-in conjunction with school records. These examinations served also to guide the employer in selecting the most capable applicant for a vacant post. Satisfactory tests had been formulated for shorthand writers and typists, and there were tests for selecting compositors. The institute had available a number of tests for immediate application to commercial houses, 'ine application of physiology' and_ psychology to commerce and. radustrj was of national importance, just as imperative in peace as military" servioe \Vas in war. While the nineteenth century was the age of mechanism, and industrialists conoentrated their attention on machinery, the twentieth century would prove to be the age of humanism, in which the mind of the worker would receive paramount consideration. .J-he subject was being taken up extensively, on the Continent, and Germany-hoped, to secure the lead in commerce and industry /bv paying attention to the human aspect of work. The. trade unions there were also recognising the value of occupational guidance for "til© young worker. _ '' . * Mr Hidhens claimed that the Institute dealt with the most important factor in industrial success—the human factor. "In view of foreign competition at the present moment," he said. "unles3 we can rise to a higher level of efficiency than ever in the pasf, w® shall be in serious trouble, 'and shall have to forego our profits and cut down wages even more seriously than they have been cut down already."

The Problem of Unrest. / Lord Haitians held that there .was no problem mpre menacing than that of unrest arising out of the relations of L"ah6ur to Capital., That, sense of unVest could be enormously reduced if taken in the right way. He was not one of the group who were filled with the fear of Bolshevism in this country* Ho mixed a good deal with the democracy, and nis misgiving w«« that it wad rather too inert; that it was rather too difficult to stir about its own real concerns. Any tendency to' Bolshevism was the tendency of a. minority, which he believed was so small that it waa not likely to exercise any predominant influence in the politics of the future. Though he did not dread revolution, there was another thing which he did dread, and that was the fact of the sonso of discontent arising from much that was legitimately regarded as a source of discontent. That it was .which, more than anything "else, contrived to keep Labour and Capital apart, and for hia part he wished to see them come more nearly together. We lived iri a remarkable century. Invention?. new ideas, were everywhere transforming knowledge,, and profoundly influencing the organisation of society. We had to tee to these. W© were very apt to neglect things, not from any want of goodwill, but simply because we did not know. It was through' want of knowledge, not foresight, that people did not make reforms that wtre vital.

Importance of Mind. Going up and down the country in the cause of getting higher education brought, through tho universities to the doors of the working-classes, he found the latter, very keen about it. But in our population not one in ten eveu today got any systematic education after leaving the elementary school. AY hat was. tho result ?, The workman bitterly complained ; he was not always inert, rho desire for a larger out.'ook was springing up among the working people. It did not cause them to look down on their manual work, rather their work had for them a new interest and significance if only tihey could get that leisure in which they could extsnd their own souls. But it was hopeless in the tase of a man or woman coming home tired out after a day's work to expect them to gain that spiritual refreshment and knowledge which made the whoI& difference to their lives. Those who gained the larger putlook were Jess likely to get rashly into industrial dis- I putes and more likely to find work interesting and be keen about it. We had reached a stage in which more and more the mere mechanical wbrk.was being done by the . machine—electricity would make a still greater revolution in "this direction—and manual labour was getting to be more and more the directing of the machine. In other words, ' mind was coming into the. business. Mind was-a very important thing. It was not capital that created wealth, nor labour, but mind. One of the objects of the institute was, as far as pos- ; sible. to relieve labour from the sense that men and women were only machines. Their aim was not to get the utmost out of the individdal without regard to the own concern. He looked forward to the time when w® I should haive got out of our heads the notion that-there was a gulf fixed between the man who worked with his

head'and the man who worked with'his rands. Much head work was very mechanical. Psychology was a new science which had ■ come into industry. "We were on the eve of realising that the workman was not a machine, but had to be watched and studied in the same way, and he imagined that within nf n ? ears the expert would he at the elbow of every manager of a great business. If this were done a. step* would have been taken towards securing the contentment of the workers, because ther would be'able to turn to those things that raised the soul and gave them the full meaning of life. Mr Julius Salmon spoke of. the great value the psychologist had been to his own company (Messrs Lyons and Co.) who employed 20,000 people, and in regard to the manual workers, remarkable results had been achieved by the application of a practical knowledge of psychology. They had been shown how to handle their goods to the best advantage hy the same staff, with less physical effort on the part of that staff, so that they had been able to handle 30 per cent, to 35 per cent, more goods. An investigation was now being carried .out under the aegis of the institute in regard to the domestic workers-^wait-resses. kitchen women, etc., and his firm felt that there was a great field here, where the wtoste from breakages alone was enormous. His firm had every reason to be _ pleased and satisfied with their experience of the work carried out by the institute on their behalf.